


the places that i go

by Sylv



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2019-06-29 11:00:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15728049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sylv/pseuds/Sylv
Summary: Alya is struggling after being akumatized, and Marinette is one of the only people who actually can't understand. Thankfully, she has Nino.





	the places that i go

**Author's Note:**

> So, my first ever ML fic! This is really just me working through post akuma stress, and wondering what it would be like to lose control like that. It's a little bit of angst, with some lovely Nino thrown in because I adore that kid. Hopefully I'll have more ML fic for you in the future. I haven't written love square yet, and that needs to be remedied.
> 
> Anyway, enjoy the character study!

Alya wakes up in a cold sweat. 

Her legs are tangled in her sheets, and her blanket has been thrown off onto the floor. She lies on her back, staring up at the dark ceiling of her room, and tries to catch her breath.

It isn’t often that she dreams; Alya has been gifted with usually dreamless sleep ever since she became a teenager, and she likes it that way. Although it would be nice to fly sometime, or save the world at night, it also means that she isn’t haunted by the nightmares that Marinette gets when she’s stressed or anxious. That started to change, however, after she became akumatized.

She has to physically remind herself to unclench her jaw as she blinks back into full wakefulness. The remnants of her dream still flutter at the edges of her consciousness, and she finds herself gasping when she remembers what she did—tying up Ladybug, threatening her, holding a hand to her throat and squeezing when she refused to transform back into her civilian self and reveal her identity. Alya holds her hand up in front of her face, and tries not to imagine those fingers wrapped around a slender neck.

It isn’t the first nightmare she’s had since her brief brush with Hawkmoth. Most of them have to do with Ladybug and Chat Noir, but sometimes she’s going after her classmates, or her parents, or even Marinette. The worst ones are when she wakes up after threatening her little sisters to tears, caging them or hunting them down. No matter how shaken she is when she awakens, she always pads on unsteady legs to go check on them sleeping down the hall.

Alya shuts her eyes tight, trying to stop the stinging at the corners. Her heartbeat has finally started to slow, and her dream is fading away into the shadows of the night. She can still remember what it feels like to squeeze though—squeeze, squeeze, not stopping, not slowing. In her dream, she relished in it. Now, she feels like she might be sick.

Usually when something happens—anything at all, really—Alya gives Marinette a call. If it’s the middle of the night, the girl is usually sleeping, but hearing her giggle at the other end of her voice message does wonders for Alya’s state of mind. 

Still, her hands stay where there are, twisted and resting upon her stomach tonight, instead of reaching for her phone on the bedside table. She’s never called Marinette after one of these dreams, and she isn’t going to start now. It’s just a nightmare, she chides herself silently, frowning up at the ceiling. You’re fine, Ladybug’s definitely fine, and you haven’t hurt anyone.

Still, she chews on her bottom lip.

Still, she doesn’t manage to fall back asleep that night. 

Alya watches the sunrise through her bedroom windows, gray and pink to a bright orange and red splashing over the carpet. When her alarm finally rings her eyes are itching with tiredness, but she’s glad she didn’t go back to sleep.

She’ll be haunted enough by that nightmare without falling into another one.

;;

It’s with lead feet and even more leaden eyelids that Alya drags herself to school that day. For once, Marinette is on time, chipper as usual and going on about some big catering event she has to help her parents prepare for. It isn’t until they’re seated in class and Alya still hasn’t said a word, communicating in grunts and groans, that Marinette scowls and pokes her on the shoulder.

“Hey,” she says, dancing her fingers down Alya’s arm. “What’s going on with you today?”

“Nothing,” Alya responds, although she winces at the gravelly tone of her voice. No one would be convinced by the performance that she’s putting on right now.

“Yeah, right,” Marinette tilts her head and narrows those blue eyes at her, like she can see right into her very soul. “I never beat you to school. Is something up? Did your sisters bother you this morning? Did your dad threaten to take your phone away again?” Marinette lowers her voice with a gasp. “Did something happen with Ladybug?”

“None of the above,” Alya grouses, trying her best not to take out her exhaustion on her best friend. “I just didn’t sleep very well last night.”

“Really? Usually you’re out like a light. Are you sure something isn’t bothering you?”

“I’m sure, girl. I’m just tired.”

Marinette huffs, but doesn’t get a chance to say anything else as M. Bustier stands up and calls the class to attention, but she does keep glancing sidelong at her friend through the entire period. Alya pretends like she doesn’t see, staring at the back of Nino’s head for most of the period.

On most days, Alya really likes Literature. She doesn’t spend as much time reading now as she did before she ran the Ladyblog, but she still has a deep appreciation for being able to be swept off into new worlds and caught up with new characters. Today, she just wants to put her head into her arms and sleep.

Lady Wifi sits at the back of her mind and practically purrs at the idea, so she refocuses on Nino’s baseball cap. It isn’t the first time she hasn’t paid attention in school, and it won’t be the last. No big deal.

After the period is over, Marinette turns immediately to Alya, crossing her arms and raising a pointed eyebrow. Alya just blinks at her.

“Tell me what’s going on or I won’t listen to your theories about Ladybug for a week. No—two weeks!”

Ouch. Right for the jugular. Still.

Still.

“Marinette, you know I love you, but this is something that I just can’t talk to you about.”

Marinette frowns, and it looks wrong twisting her mouth. “Alya, you know that you can tell me anything.”

“I can’t talk to you about this… I just… you wouldn’t understand.”

She can read the hurt plainly on Marinette’s face; those big eyes don’t hide anything. And she feels bad about this, she really does. But this is the one thing that Marinette wouldn’t understand—couldn’t understand. The girl’s been lucky enough to avoid being akumatized, despite her constant shifts in mood. How could she possibly say the right things to get her to see what that experience is like?

“Please let it go,” her voice nearly breaks, and she can feel those tears from hours ago threatening again. Damn, she really must be tired; it takes a lot for her to break down in public, and at the school no less.

After a pause, Marinette sighs, defeated. “Okay. If you really want me to. But know that I’m here for you, alright? Anything, anytime, you can come to me. I’m always down to just sit and listen, if that’s what you need.”

“I know, and I love you for it,” Alya wraps Marinette up in a tight hug. “Maybe later. I just need to go to bed a reasonable hour tonight, and I’m sure I’ll be fine. Thanks, girl.”

;;

During lunch, Alya is sitting with her knees pulled up to her chest, her arms hugging them. Marinette had decided to go home for lunch, which was fine with her. She just need some alone time, or something. She leans her forehead down on her forearms and sighs, Lady Wifi’s laugh echoing in her ears. It doesn’t usually take this long for her to shake her nightmares, but maybe they’re getting worse. God, maybe it’s going to be like this from here on out. 

“Looking rough, dude.”

Alya drags her head up from where it’s resting to see Nino standing there, a hand on his hip, looking more concerned for her than she’s ever seen him. Without being asked he sits down next to her and plucks a strawberry from her untouched lunch, popping it in his mouth.

“Thanks,” Alya says drily, watching him eat her food. “Love it when guys point out that I’m not looking so hot. It’s a real confidence boost.”

His brows furrow, and he turns so that he’s facing her more fully. “Damn, you really must be out of it. Usually you’re so territorial over your food I have to beg you for a taste. What’s going on? Bad morning?”

Alya takes a deep breath, her shoulders slumping. “You could say that.”

“You wanna talk about it?”

She watches him take another strawberry without saying anything for a moment. Nino’s one of her closest friends. He, Adrien, Marinette and she have become a sort of foursome over the past few months, and she would consider them to be the people she’s closest to out of their class. Even if Adrien’s ass of a dad sometimes meant that he couldn’t hang out with them.

Plus, out of the four of them, Nino’s the only other one who’s ever been akumatized.

He would know.

“Do you remember being akumatized?”

Nino makes a face around the strawberry in his mouth. “How could I forget. I looked like a moron. So many people get cool costumes when they’re akumatized and I looked like a forgotten clown at a carnival. So uncool.”

“You did look like an idiot.”

He chuckles. “Not all of us can look like hot stuff like you when we become villains, I guess. Just a sucky roll of the dice.”

Alya can’t even find it in her to be pleased by the compliment, so she files that one away for later. “And what about, like, afterwards?”

“Afterwards?”

“Yeah. After Ladybug saved the day—"

“And Chat Noir.”

“After Ladybug and Chat Noir saved the day. You didn’t have any, um, lingering side effects or anything did you?”

“Oh,” Nino swallows and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “You’re talking about the nightmares, aren’t you.” It’s not a question.

Alya’s eyes widen, and she sits up straight. “The nightmares! So you get them too?”

Nino shrugs, like they’re having a casual conversation about ice cream. Still, when he smiles, it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Been having them for months, dude. Not all the time, but when they come they really sucker punch you in the gut. Sometimes I have two in one night. That’s always a good time.”

“I had one last night,” Alya admits, shuddering when the image of Ladybug pleading springs unbidden to her mind. “I almost killed our city’s superheroes. And me, Ladybug’s biggest fan! It freaked me out so much that I couldn’t go back to sleep.”

“I get you. Mine are usually about…” Nino sucks in a breath, avoiding her gaze. “My parents. Sometimes I’m hitting them, hurting them. Sometimes I’m making them disappear forever. Sometimes it’s my friends’ parents, and if I’m really lucky I don’t wake up before watching my friends cry about it while I laugh. It’s hard to decide what’s worse.” He glances at her, and with a much more perceptive guess than she usually gives him credit for, guesses, “Is this what you and Marinette were arguing about this morning?”

Looks like the kid is astute. “Were you eavesdropping on us?”

“You two don’t exactly talk quietly. If you don’t want me to listen, don’t talk right behind me. It’s better than TV sometimes.”

That pulls an offended laugh out of her, but Nino beams when he hears it. Alya shakes her head at him and wrinkles her nose. “You’re going to get yourself into trouble someday, and I’m not going to do a thing to stop it.”

“At least I’ll die happy,” Nino says, standing after watching her lips pull into a smile. “Listen, if you want to keep talking about this sometime, I’m down. I bet talking about it would actually help. It would be nice for me, too.”

Very astute then, huh.

“I’ll take you up on that sometime.” Alya watches him head back over to Adrien, who is eating lunch with Rose and Juleka. He glances back over his shoulder halfway there and throws her a thumbs up. Her stomach does a little bit of flipping, and she realizes that Lady Wifi is nowhere to be found.

;;

When Marinette comes back from lunch at her house, she slides into her seat and immediately pounces on Alya. “How are you doing? Feeling any better after you ate?”

“I’m still exhausted, but,” Alya glances at the back of Nino’s head in front of her. “Actually yeah. I am feeling better.”


End file.
